(Posted September 29, 2014)

Jackson Katz
Jackson Katz

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Jackson Katz, co-founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention, an outreach organization that enlists men in the struggle to prevent male violence against women, will speak at Juniata College on "The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men can Help" at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9, in Rosenberger Auditorium in the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. The talk is sponsored by the Edwin A. and Susan R. Malloy Lectureship endowment.

In his talk, Katz will detail sexism in sports and in the U.S. armed forces, and the intersection of racism and sexism, as well as homophobia within all-male groups in American male culture. The lecture will use video excerpts from popular culture and Katz' own videos.

He also covers how male culture contributes to sexual and domestic violence. He will explain how male peer culture practices, such as using pornography, prostitution and stripping, all contribute to gender violence.

Katz created and co-founded the Mentors in Violence Protection program in 1993 at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. From the program's inception the doctrine emphasized a large-scale, multiracial and mixed gender approach to enlist athletes from professional, collegiate and high school teams to become activists in preventing violence against women.

In his talk, Katz will detail sexism in sports and in the U.S. armed forces, and the intersection of racism and sexism, as well as homophobia within all-male groups in American male culture.

The program is one of the first in the nation to use the "bystander" approach to gender violence prevention. The bystander approach encourages community members to intervene or take an active role in preventing gender violence.

Katz has also created training materials as the founder and director of MVP Strategies, an offshoot organization that has provided training to colleges and universities, high schools, law enforcement agencies, corporations, community organizations and the U.S. military branches. His program MVP-MC is the first worldwide gender violence prevention program used by the U.S. Marine Corps.

The program is also widely used in professional and collegiate sports. The MVP staff has trained the personnel of the New England Patriots, the Boston Red Sox and NASCAR. Athletic departments at high school and colleges and universities also use the program.

Katz has written two books, "The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men can Help" and "Leading Men: Presidential Campaigns and the Politics of Manhood." In addition he has created award-winning videos for college and high school audiences, including "Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity," "Wrestling with Manhood" and "Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies and Alcohol."

Katz was a member of the U.S. Secretary of Defense's Task Force on Domestic Violence from 2000 to 2003 and he served on the American Bar Association's Commission on Domestic Violence from 1998 to 2000. From 1988 to 1998, Katz was chief organizer for Real Men, a Boston-based anti-sexist men's group. He has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Good Morning America," "20/20" and the "CBS Evening News."

He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and went on to earn a doctorate from UCLA.
Juniata College is one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation, specializing in experiential learning, science research and education, and personal attention for all students. Juniata offers a college experience that emphasizes a student-alumni-faculty community extending beyond graduation.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.